Love, Lust & Friendship

by Elizabeth Stevens

  Look, he wasn’t wrong. “Well, it’s just so much prettier than that pitiful excuse for a face. Maybe we can pull an old switch-a-roo?”

  Ander snorted, leaning his head against the side of mine as he tried not to laugh.

  “Let it all out, dude,” I said as I patted his head awkwardly like he was crying not laughing, my eyes still on the jackass that was Liam with Misty. “Let it all out. Keeping this in just isn’t good for you.”

  “Kitchen,” he wheezed. “Beer.”

  “Who needs sentences with a love like ours, babe,” I said wistfully as I grabbed the top of Ander’s ear and, finally turning away from Liam and Misty, hauled him after me.

  “Addy and, er Ander!” people called happily as we passed and I gave them a nod.

  I heard Ander’s muffled “hey,” in response as he was bent double following me.

  “You know, babe, I am capable of walking unaided,” he said as though we’d made some uber discovery; like the time when we were eleven and thought we’d found a new breed of bug – it had just been a moth that had lost half its wings.

  I let go of his ear as I reached for the fridge. “Are you, though?” I tossed him a beer and watched him pop it, he then passed it back as I tossed him his.

  He stuck his tongue out at me and I repaid the favour.

  “God, Addy. What are you? Five?” Ander chastised with a twinkle in his eyes as he held the bottle to his lips and I rolled my eyes at him, trying to hide a smile.

  “Well, if I am, you are.”

  He snorted and almost lost beer out his nose. “Mentally maybe. Those great monsters on your chest are screaming adult.” He pointed and stared at said monsters, as totally unfazed by their presence as he’d been when they’d first arrived, as unfazed as he’d been through my first bra shop, and as unfazed as he’d been when it looked like they wouldn’t stop growing.

  I rolled my eyes at him again. “They’re a D, Ander. Plenty of people have bigger boobs than me.”

  “Uh, yeah. But, their waists don’t usually think that shrinkage is the key to obscurity.”

  “My waist didn’t shrink!”

  “Didn’t it, though?” he asked, his tone rising and we both looked down at my waist. It wasn’t my fault that my hips had widened along with the monsters and made it look like my waist had shrunk.

  “No. My waist is the same as it’s always been. I’m apparently just as obscure as I’ve been all my life.” I huffed my auburn hair out of my face and took a long pull of my beer.

  It was some craft thing from up in the hills or something that Topher liked, but the idea that me drinking it meant less of it for him was too good an annoyance to pass up. Especially when I was pretending I wasn’t annoyed about Liam. I mean, I’d get over it quickly enough – it wasn’t like it was a surprise my crush didn’t work out – but I was at that moment annoyed.

  “You’re not obscure. You’re just…” He stopped.

  I raised my eyebrow at him and he picked at his beer label; whenever he got nervous or unsure he fiddled. And, I couldn’t help but tease him.

  “I’m just what? Come on, Ander. Use your big boy words,” I teased in a baby voice and he glared at me.

  “I dunno. You’re just…”

  “You’re fine, Addy,” a new voice picked up where Ander’s trailed off.

  We both whipped around and saw Topher in the fridge, giving me an appraising look over his shoulder. Well, not literally in the fridge. He was taller than the fridge so there was no way he was going to be able to get in the fridge…

  Shut up, brain!

  “She’s fine?” Ander huffed. “I was going for something a little more comforting than ‘fine’, Toph.”

  Topher looked me over again, one eyebrow rising the way mine did but Ander had never managed. That annoying smirk played at the corner of his lips. The one that made girls fall all over him and giggle and forget the kind of guy he was until he was done with them and they were crying to me like I could do anything about it. Girls barely noticed I was a girl. It wasn’t surprising most of the guys hadn’t figured it out yet. Ander said I should wear less baggy clothes. I told him I would if he would.

  “I expected you’d hit me if I said what I was really thinking,” Topher said dryly to his brother and I’d forgotten what we’d been talking about.

  “What?” I asked as Ander scoffed, “Okay, let’s hear this comforting gem, then.”

  Topher looked at me again, then the teasingly amused look was replaced with a frown. “Is that one of my beers?”

  My brain-function finally returned and I smirked. “Yep,” I said before wrapping my lips around the top and winking at him as I took a sip.

  Topher’s eyebrow rose again even though the rest of his face was unreadable, but Ander spoke before he could say anything.

  “Who cares what both the jackasses think. I think you look good in whatever you wear. Guys are just idiots. If I didn’t love you, I’d totally be into you.”

  I glared at him and shoved him. “Thanks. That hasn’t just put me off food for life or anything.”

  Ander smirked at me, but Topher spoke first. “You’re unique, Addy,” he said as he popped his bottle lid and I wasn’t sure if he was implying that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Teenage boys don’t know what to do with unique. Don’t take it so personally.” That was definitely said as an insult.

  I frowned at him. “Uh, thanks?”

  “What?” he asked, looking at Ander quickly like Ander would just agree with him. “We know the kind of flirting that involves boobs and hair flicks and pouty lips and freakishly fast blinking. Not…” he waved a vague hand at me, “whatever it is you do.”

  My frown deepened. “Thanks, Topher,” I answered sarcastically.

  Topher just shrugged in that nonchalant way he had like it wasn’t his bad I was a terrible girl, gave me a kick of his chin, and made to leave.

  “Oh, hey. You won’t get to try out that new lip gloss now,” Ander sighed and I felt myself flush. I tried to give him a ‘really’ look without being quite so obvious. But, of course that didn’t keep him quiet. “Did we pick cherry for the jackass?”

  I could have sworn I heard Topher’s chuckle as he walked out with a shake of his head. Oh, and my face was so hot now. I leant over and hit my best friend.

  “Dude!” I smacked him. “That was in confidence. I didn’t tell Amy that you tried – and failed, remember – trimming your bush in case you got lucky, did I?” I hissed and Ander joined me in my blushing. Failed here meaning that he managed to cut himself and it was all patchy; I wasn’t trying to look, but it was difficult not to see something when helping administer first aid while he gushed blood.

  “Shut up, Ads!” he muttered, looking around and having more beer like he was still cool.

  But, the couple of people in the kitchen didn’t seem to be paying us any attention now that Topher had walked out.

  Then, Ander’s eyes got that sparkle and I glared at him while I waited for whatever he thought was going to be so funny. “If it means that much to you, I will kiss you so you can at least make use of it.”

  I wrinkled my nose with a laugh as I remembered our ill-fated first kiss when we were about eleven or twelve. We’d both wanted to know what all the fuss was about and given it a go. Needless to say, we hadn’t found out what all the fuss was about. Not together anyway, and I was yet to discover it at all. Just the idea of kissing Ander again left a weird taste in my mouth.

  “You don’t even like cherry.”

  He did that cute shrug. “The things I do for love,” he said wistfully.

  I scoffed, “I’d rather kiss your brother.”

  “Ouch, babe,” he laughed, draping his heavy arm around my shoulders and starting to lead us back into the party. “That hurts me in all my man places.”

  I snorted. “If you had man places you wouldn’t call them that.”

  “Sexist.”

  �
��Idiot.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Please don’t kiss my brother.”

  “What if we fell in lurve?” I teased him.

  He huffed a laugh. “You do you, Ads.”

  “So, if I just went over now and threw myself at him?” I pressed.

  I felt him shrug as he had to ditch the arm around my shoulder and take my hand to get through the throng of kids dancing in his aunt’s living room to something I could barely hear over its own bass.

  Then, his lips were at my ear as I pulled him along. “Even the adults know you and Toph would implode before you got to second base.”

  Well, that wasn’t wrong either. Topher and I agreed about nothing – except that pineapple definitely belonged on pizza – we barely had a nice word to say about each other let alone to each other, and, in the eight or so years since the Henderson boys had come into my life, I don’t think I’d ever seen him not act like a douche.

  Actually, that wasn’t quite true.

  Once. I’d seen Topher not be a douche once.

  The day Ander and I had met.

  It was the first day of Year 4 and the Henderson boys had just transferred to our school after moving in with Aunt Jelly. Some guys in Year 7 were picking on Ander – he was pretty tiny back then – and just as I stepped up to punch the mean dillweed in the face, Topher did the same. Topher totally stole my thunder that day, but Ander and I had been joined at the hip since.

  Standing up for his brother that day had been the only time I’d seen Topher be decent to anyone. It was a bloody good thing Ander had had me to fight his battles for him until he got bigger than everyone else, because his big brother seemed to lose any interest in sticking up for him once said big brother became Mr Popular Dipshit.

  These days, I had more grownup words to describe Topher than dillweed. And, he deserved every last one of them, even if he was the sort of attractive that made my brain melt sometimes.

  “Hang on…” I said, turning to face Ander. “So if I get to do me, why don’t you want me kissing your brother?”

  Ander gave me that adorable shrug-smirk combination that was finally starting to get him some notice with the female population. “Do you really want to kiss my brother?”

  I paused, mouth open ready to respond. The idea of kissing Topher was just…

  No.

  Yeah, dude was scorchingly sexy and rumour (there’s that word again) was he knew what he was doing. But, knowing it would mean absolutely nothing to him was putting a serious dampener on any imagined win I’d get in that scenario. Besides, kissing a guy I wanted to hit more often than not was probably down on the bad ideas list. When that guy was your best friend’s brother? That probably put it at the top.

  “Okay. No. I don’t want to kiss your brother.”

  Ander’s smirk grew. “Now that’s sorted. More beer?”

  I laughed. “Yes. Take me to the beer, kind sir!”

  Ander took me to the beer and we hung out with our friends, danced, avoided Topher and his admirers, danced again, Ander lost ‘Get Down, Mr President’ (twice), danced some more, tried to do the Centurion and got full of bubbles after fifteen minutes, went back to dancing, Ander did a showing of his ‘Believe’ rendition while Derek beatboxed along, and completely lost track of time.

  At some point, I found Will sitting on one of the ornamental rocks as he watched Derek and Ander do hand-stand races across the lawn, and I dropped beside him.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile.

  I nudged my shoulder to his. “Hey. That beer’s looking mighty warm, there.”

  He huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah.”

  “Want me to get you a new one?”

  He shook his head and took a sip.

  “You know you don’t have to drink that,” I told him as he tried not to grimace.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “It’s hot enough tonight, dude. Let’s not add warm beer to that. Gross.”

  He threw me a grin, then I realised his eyes kept sliding over to a group of girls in our year.

  “You going to talk to one of them?” I asked, nudging him again.

  He shook his head again.

  “Why not?”

  He looked at me like I’d forgotten who he was. Which was stupid because I could never forget who Will was. He was the sweetest boy I knew, and he never seemed to remember it.

  “What?” I smiled. “You think they don’t wanna talk to you?” I asked him.

  “Them talking to me would require me talking to them, Ads.”

  “So? Go talk to them.”

  He snorted and fiddled with one of those red curls like he could hide behind it. “We both know I don’t do that.”

  “I don’t see why not. Even Gomez manages to talk to girls,” I reminded him.

  “Derek’s…” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Derek’s different. He can talk to girls.”

  I snorted. “He thinks he can talk to girls.”

  Will nodded thoughtfully. “He’s not like Tate, that’s for sure.”

  I laughed as my eyes happened to find the very obvious frame of Tate hooking up with someone in the semi-darkness. “I don’t think anyone’s quite like Tate.”

  “I think Ander will be.”

  I snorted beer out my nose and looked at him while I was trying to stretch the bubbles out of sinuses. “What?”

  Will nodded his head to where the love of my life was currently hanging upside down from the monkey bars as he conducted Derek in some kind of jig. “Give him some time.”

  I looked at Will askance, not sure I believed it. But, Will had a tendency to see things other people didn’t – even me and even about the person I was closest to. I guessed it was because he was the quiet one. He wasn’t busy trying to one-up anyone or make the most noise or have the worst scars. He was just Will, always involved, always beside us, but watchful rather than a little oblivious. If anyone was going to be able to keep the Alt Kids of Saint Basils safe, then it would be Will Green.

  “If you were going to talk to one of them, who would it be?” I asked him.

  He smiled at he looked at his lap. “Olivia.”

  I nodded. Good choice. She’d seemed nice on those few occasions I’d talked to her. “Cool.”

  “Oi, Addy Mac!” Derek yelled, spotting me and throwing his arms wide. “Now is not the time for idleness! Now is the time to fight for what is yours!”

  “Oh, God,” I muttered to Will. “What now?”

  Will laughed. “I hate to think.”

  As Derek grabbed my hand, I let my empty bottle drop to the edge of the grass and grabbed Will’s hand as well.

  “What are you doing?” Will asked, panicked.

  “All for one, and one for all!” I yelled as Derek swung me into his arms and Ander grabbed Will, pulled his phone out of his pocket and threw it into the bushes, and the four of us tumbled into the pool.

  I came up spluttering as the others did the same.

  “Did I take my phone out of my pocket?” Derek asked Ander, who snorted.

  “Uh, I dunno, Gomez. I asked you if you had and you said yes.”

  Derek grinned goofily, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. “Cool.”

  “Right!” I called. “If we’re here – shoulder wars.”

  “Come on, William,” Derek called. “Your mighty steed awaits!”

  I laughed as Ander sloshed to me and dived. “Please never refer… Whoa!” I giggled as Ander lifted me up. “Never refer to yourself as a steed again.”

  Derek disappeared as Will got onto his shoulders, then waggled his eyebrows at me when he surfaced again. “Nah, I’m more a stud, eh?”

  I shook my head.

  “No?” Derek looked up at Will as though for confirmation.

  “Stud muffin,” was all Will said.

  “Muffin is right,” I told Derek.

  Derek’s eye narrowed, but he was smiling. “You two are g
oing down.”

  “We can take ‘em, babe,” Ander told me, taking hold of my knees.”

  “Let’s do this,” I locked eyes with Will, who just smiled and nodded before we started wrestling.

  Chapter Five

  A change of clothes and a few more beers later, Ander and I were where we usually were after we’d riled each other up to expert-level hyper. Namely, on top of the monkey bars Aunt Jelly had always intended to get rid of because of this exact reason. We both had our designated pool noodles (mine was blue, his was red) and I was grinning at him.

  “Okay, loser. You’re going down,” I called to him.

  He shook his head. “Oh, hell no. It’s your turn this time, Ads.”

  I held my pool noodle up in my ready stance and Ander did the same.

  “Alright, gladiators!” Derek called in a boxing announcer’s voice. “At the short and tiny end, we have the small fry, the tiny Timothy, weird with a capital W. It’s our very own feisty fajita Addy Mac! And at the–”

  “Hang on,” I yelled down at him, dropping my pool noodle by my knees. “Why am I a feisty fajita?”

  “Because you’re hot and spicy,” Ander called which a chuckle.

  “I’m not hot and spicy. I’m mild.”

  “Mildly drunk,” Ander sniggered.

  I grinned and brandished my pool noodle at him. “No mildly about it, babe. Let’s do this!”

  We both looked to Derek and gave him a nod.

  “And at the tall and lanky end we have the roller king, the skating god, the man with the moves. The one, the only, Mr Alexander Henderson!”

  I pointed my noodle at Ander again. “You suck. You totally put him up to that didn’t you?”

  Ander just grinned at me. “Game on, punk princess.”

  I shook my head and we both stepped forward. But, that forward momentum was stalled when we heard our names being screeched over the music from the window directly opposite us… The one that was on Aunt Jelly’s second floor.

  “Hey!” I called with a smile like everything was fine and saw Aunt Jelly hanging out the window with the biggest scowl on her face.

  “Dudes, come on!” she yelled waving her hands. “It’s bad enough you do this sober. If I have to meet your parents at the hospital again Addison MacGuire, there will be hell to pay.”